


(un)stuck

by renecdote



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Buck needs a hug, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, disorientation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27703967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: His leg. Shit, he can’t, he can’t move his leg, he can’t live without it, he can’t—Eddie’s hand squeezes his shoulder, dragging Buck’s focus back to him. It doesn’t really work. Eddie slides a hand up to cup his face instead.“Evan,” he says. “I need you to tell me you know where you are. Look around, okay? What do you see?”Buck is injured on a call. Eddie helps him.
Relationships: Evan “Buck” Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 211





	(un)stuck

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on tumblr (“Where are you? Tell me where you are.”)
> 
> Contains spoilers for 2x18 but nothing else.

Buck comes to with his face against the ground. His eyes are stinging, watering, and he can’t tell whether it’s from fine glass dust or just the smoke in the air. Every inch of him hurts, but his leg—

Fuck. His _leg_.

Buck groans; feels it vibrate in his chest. He rolls his head, everything swimming dizzily. Orange and black and the nauseating scent of burnt metal, all mixed together. 

He sees boots. He blinks, and then there are legs, blue material stretching as they kneel in front of him. 

_Help_ , he tries to say, but he’s not sure he manages to push the word past his lips. 

There is a low buzz in his ears as the other person starts speaking. It’s… Eddie’s voice? It’s hard to tell, muffled through the ringing in Buck’s ears and the pounding of his head. Eddie leans over him and Buck watches his best friend’s lips move; watches until the words form into sounds.

“—uck, hey, hey, I’ve got you.”

Buck shakes his head. No. No, Eddie isn’t supposed to be here. It’s not safe. Eddie is supposed to be…

“You’re okay,” Eddie says.

Okay? No, no, he’s—there’s a fucking ladder truck crushing his leg, he’s not—he’s—

“Stuck,” Buck gasps. He tries to wriggle forward— _can’t_ —and bites his lip so hard he tastes blood trying not to cry. Or maybe he was already tasting blood. Maybe he was already crying. Everything is blurry, off-centre. It makes the pounding in Buck’s head worse. He lets his eyes slip shut, then forces them back open. No. Falling asleep is bad. He can’t remember why, but he knows it’s bad.

Eddie turns away, but Buck can still hear the buzz of his voice. _Radio_ , he realises distantly. He tries to look around. Where are the rest of his team? He was sure they were all there. Hen and Chimney and—and even Bobby. Why was Bobby there? He was… He wasn’t supposed to be…

Gentle fingers prod around the side of Buck’s head. He flinches. Groans. Blood runs across his cheek.

“Sorry,” he thinks Eddie says. Two of Eddie’s fingers moves in front of his eyes and Buck tries to follow them and what Eddie is saying at the same time, but it’s too hard, makes him too dizzy. He closes his eyes.

“Hey, hey, no, Buck, come on, stay with me.” 

It’s a Herculean effort to peel his eyes back open, but Eddie sounds so worried. Frantic, almost. For a second, Buck thinks something must have happened to Christopher, he must be hurt—but no, it’s just Buck that Eddie is worried about.

“We have to get out of here,” he says, low and firm and only the slightest bit urgent. “Do you think you can stand?”

Can he...? What? Can’t Eddie _see_?

“My leg,” Buck gets out. 

Eddie’s worried frown swims in front of him. “Your leg is fine, Buck.”

Fine? No, no, it’s—

Buck tries to push himself up, tries to twist, but he’s so dizzy, and Eddie is holding him still and—

“Buck, where do you think you are?”

His leg. Shit, he can’t, he can’t move his leg, he can’t live without it, he can’t—

Eddie’s hand squeezes his shoulder, dragging Buck’s focus back to him. It doesn’t really work. Eddie slides a hand up to cup his face instead.

“Evan,” he says. “I need you to tell me you know where you are. Look around, okay? What do you see?”

What does he see?

He sees Eddie.

He sees flames.

He sees... 

“Factory,” he rasps. He’s in a factory. He’s... there was a call? Yes, it comes back in jagged pieces. Two injuries caused by a machine malfunction at a paper factory. But of course it wasn’t as simple as it should have been, because nobody was expecting the damn thing to go up in flames, fire spreading quickly among all the cardboard and paper. He and Eddie were the last ones heading out, doing a final sweep while the rest of the team handled the injured workers and evacuation outside. They were almost to the front doors when the conveyor belt above them collapsed. Buck thinks he pushed Eddie out of the way, but maybe Eddie pushed him. It’s all kind of fuzzy, but he can see now that he’s lying on the dusty concrete floor, not a road.

There’s no bomb.

No ladder truck.

No crushed leg.

Buck swallows a sob. “I’m here,” he gets out. “I’m here. I’m with you.”

Eddie laughs, short and choked with relief. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you are. I’m gonna get us out of here.”

He gets Buck standing—on two working legs, _thank god_ —then slings an arm around his waist when he sways. Definitely a head injury. Buck wonders whether Eddie told him that and it just didn’t register. He has to blink a few times before he can say, “Yeah, ‘m good, let’s go.”

The rest of the 118 are all over them as soon as they stumble out into the car park. Buck has to close his eyes, dizzy against the rush of movement. Everything is so loud and the ladder truck’s lights are flashing—have they always been so bright? Someone—Chimney, maybe—yells right beside his ear and Buck winces. 

“Ouch,” he mutters.

Beside him, Eddie is rattling off a report about what happened and Buck’s injuries and “no, I’m fine, worry about him, he hit his head pretty hard—”

He doesn’t mention Buck’s flashback. (Because he knows that’s what it was, even if it hurts to think through his headache.) He just says, “I don’t know if he lost consciousness, but he was pretty disoriented.”

Buck catches Eddie’s arm before Hen and Chimney can pull him away to be checked out. He just means to say thank you, but before he can straighten the words out, brain and mouth tripping over each other, Eddie turns his arm up so he can grasp Buck’s forearm. He smiles, nods, _I’ve got your back_ , and then Hen is pulling Buck toward the ambulance while Chimney crowds into Eddie’s space to check him out too.

Buck sits still for Hen’s battery of questions and tests, and when she asks if he is hurt anywhere else, he says, “No, just my head.”

And if Hen notices him glancing down to check that his leg is still fine, she doesn’t mention it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are love 💛 And you can also find me on tumblr [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com/).


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